keep in mind:I’ve had this for about a week so here are my opinions so far.This is my first planer. I bought this one reconditioned. It was cheap, only $159 at cporyobi.com. free shipping and no sales tax.

It does a good job planing. All I’ve ran thru it is oak and pine. The results are very good, probably because the blades are still new.

It has no infeed/outfeed extension. In the pic you can see I made a crude one for myself using a leaf from an old dining room table. It’s slick on top and works great. I put cleats on the bottom so it wouldn’t move. I also had to shim the infeed part slightly with a couple puzzle pieces to get rid of sniping. There is probably still some snipe that someone more experienced would be able to find but the results so far look good to me.

The dust collection…is terrible. I have a big shop vac that sucks pretty hard but this planer still makes a terrible mess. It’s surprising to me that it planes so good with all those shavings going everywhere. You can see wear on the infeed/outfeed table I made, that is from the dust chips that get trapped underneath the wood I’m planing. I will probably have to clean/wax this area a lot.

Overall, I like it. It’s awesome to have a planer! Sure beats planing by hand. I would recommend this to beginners (like me). I think it’s a good first planer. An experienced woodworker would most likely be disappointed. It lets you get your feet wet without breaking the bank.

Try planing with your stock closest to the DC port, you will blow chips on ANY planer that has a side port if you are planing on the other side of the bed from the port, the chips simply have that much further to go…

As you gain more experience with this planer, or read the owners manual, you may gain an appreciation for how good of a bargain it is at full price, let alone refurbished like you got…

ive bought this planer a few months ago, ive ripped down my barnwood, walnut, padauk, lacewood, pine, maple, it does a good job, it does snipe if you dont have an extension board out back, but i usually allow my self extra room on the board for that, and dont concern myself with snipe to much, other wise run a xtra stick with a board that is to length and it takes away the snipe if your already cut to size. i love the planer it is the cheapest out there, but for hardwood, slow and steady, and it works very well… i have no complaints on this machine at all. but then again i dont have anything to compare the ryobi to also. but id buy it again any day of the week and three times on sunday.

It looks good for a reconditioned. I’d give it an 8. See the pics. If it wouldn’t have had shavings in it when I received it, it would have looked just like a new one. It only took a couple mins for me to blow all those out before I used it. But I guess that saved me $40 over buying one new. plus sales tax. :) I’m cheap.

I’ve had one of these for about 3 years now. It’s been a fair little planer. Be carefull with the crank handle. They snap off where the pin holds the handle to the pointer. For the dust collection, make sure the plastic cover your vac connects to is closed all the way. If it’s open at all you lose suction and chips will go everywhere. Mine has a fair amount of snipe no matter what I do. If I was going to buy another planer marketed for home/hobbist use, I’d look for one with a locking head. For the money, it does a good job.

I have the 1300 model and I believe that the blades change out the same. If you have an impact driver, use it to loosen the allen screws. You will have the blades out in 2 minutes. They are very difficult to remove by hand and have a tendency to strip. There is a button on the right side that is normally held down by the dust collector. If you press that button you can rotate the drum to have better access to the screws.

I have this planer as well and think it is a great machine for the money. I put duct tape on the seams of the plastic cover on the back and this helped the chip collection quite a bit. I also found that if you run the boards on the right side it does much better at collecting the shavings.